Half of Americans With High Blood Pressure Have the Condition Under Control, but Hypertension Is on the Rise

By Daniel J. DeNoon

Half of Americans with high blood pressure now have the condition under control, but more and more Americans are coming down with the dangerous condition.For a long time, it didn't look as though Americans would reach the U.S. Healthy People 2010 goal of having 50% of people control their high blood pressure. Only 27.3% of people with hypertension -- the medical term for high blood pressure -- controlled it between 1988 and 1994.

But now, Brent M. Egan, MD, and colleagues at the University of South Carolina report that by 2007-2008, 50.1% of Americans with hypertension got their blood pressure below 140/90.

It's "cause for celebration," says Boston University researcher Aram Chobanian, MD. But Chobanian cuts the festivities short by quickly observing that more than 30% of Americans have high blood pressure and at least 30% more have prehypertension, which also increases risk of heart disease.

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